A few selfish reasons

I wanted to be on this mission with ones I loved and I was to have my heart's desire.  I wanted to see the mission projects begun by SIFAT and my friend Sarah, the ones I had only heard about for years.  I had seen the SIFAT Galilee Campus in Alabama and spent a summer with a Practicum, with students from five continents.  But I wanted to travel to see the Ecuador mission projects. I was expecting Sarah to be warmly welcomed and I wasn't disappointed in that either.  

Here, she is met with a hug by Ledy at our first project visit, Little Seeds of God, one of the facilities built by SIFAT teams over the years.  This building is deceptive from the street as it appears to be a one-story building, but many buildings have several floors as does this one.  Built on the side of a mountain, the stories are added gradually in most buildings.  Many have rebar protuding above them and this is a sign that the project is expected to grow upward.

Two of my three children were with the team.  Elizabeth, a physician from North Carolina, would be practicing her skills when we began the medical mission several days later.  And in the meantime, Elizabeth found a way to be helpful right away,serving lunches to little ones.

 Many of these children would be left home alone, locked in or tied to something in order to protect them during the day while their mothers worked.  Now, through the cooperation of SIFAT, in the construction of the facilities, and Compassion International which hires mothers to work in the day-care and after-school programs and provides a daily meal for the children, and the local community churches, these children are protected and cared for and their mothers have jobs and the children have a meal each day.

My son Jon, an old hand at visiting Latin America, wrote about his experience on this mission on his own blog--Latin-America-on-a-Steel-Horse.blogspot.com

He speaks Spanish and would help with the interpretation during our visits and as the triage interpreter during the medical mission.
                                                   Shoes were set aside for naptime at Little Seeds of God.